The current research of a Melbourne team is providing a lot of hope in developing a drug for malaria, which has killed over 500,000 people.
Malaria is a serious infectious disease from Anopheles mosquito. A parasite from the Plasmodium genus can infect the female mosquito and transmitted to humans through a mosquito bite. It has an incubation period of around 8 to 25 days. Some of the most common symptoms are headache, high systemic fever, back pain, muscle pain, enlarged spleen, nausea, vomiting, dry cough, and chills. Severe malaria can lead to problems like pneumonia.
The team from Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, which included Dr. Jake Baum and Dr. Wilson Wong, has discovered that an existing drug known as emetine can potentially prevent the survival of the malaria parasite. Emetine is a drug that comes from ipecac root. It is used to encourage vomiting. It is also shown to be effective in treating amoebiasis.
According to the research, this drug can prevent the buildup of proteins that are necessary for the parasite to survive. This breakthrough is critical in the campaigns against malaria. Although there are already existing drugs in the market, the parasite has developed resistance to it. Thus, it becomes important to find and produce newer drugs.
The researchers hope that with this discovery, drug manufacturers can have use it as a foundation or basis for further research and eventually development of new anti-malarial drugs. They can focus on how to extract or replicate the beneficial component of emetine without compromising the health quality of the patient. Emetine is also known for its side effects like nausea.
According to World Health Organization, around 50% of the global population is susceptible to malaria. It is currently responsible for more than 620,000 deaths with over 85% of these occurring in the African regions. Simple methods such as sleeping inside nets treated with insecticides help reduce transmission by as much as 50%. It also prevents at least 20% of deaths among children. Like dengue, malaria doesn't have any approved vaccine.